From: mserban@aol.com (Mserban)
Subject: Re: Building a primary key
Date: 1997/03/28
Message-ID: <19970328003301.TAA15017@ladder01.news.aol.com>#1/1
References: <333AB7EB.56AE@medicalert.org>
Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com
Newsgroups: comp.databases.oracle.server
X-Admin: news@aol.com



You hit upon a big "bone of contention" in the (relational) database
community: "surrogate" primary keys vs. "natural" primary keys. A sequence
used as a primary key is a surrogate key. Personally, I am in favor of
natural keys (let's face it: if your database models business processes
there must be one or more attributes that uniquely identify an entity).
But if you need or want to use surrogate keys, use sequences.

BTW, the magazine "Database Programming and Design" (highly recommended !)
had a number of articles a year or two ago where various experts debated
the issue of surrogate vs. natural keys.

I hope this helps.


Michael Serbanescu
Senior Consultant, MIACO Corporation